Quote of the Day (P. J. O’Rourke, on Road Hazards in the Third World)

“What would be a road hazard anyplace else, in the Third World is probably the road. There are two techniques for coping with this. One is to drive very fast so your wheels ‘get on top’ of the ruts and your car sails over the ditches, gullies and pot holes. Predictably, this will result in disaster. The other technique is to drive very slow. This will result in disaster. No matter how slowly you drive into a ten-foot hole, you’re still going to get hurt. You’ll find the locals themselves can’t make up their minds. Either they drive at 2 mph — which they do when there’s absolutely no way to get around them. Or else they drive at 100 mph — which they do coming right at you when you finally get a chance to pass the guy going 2 mph.”— P. J. O’Rourke, “Third World Driving Hits and Tips,” in Holidays in Hell: In Which Our Intrepid Reporter Travels to the World's Worst Places and Asks, "What's Funny About This" (1988)

Photo of the Day: Pothole Purgatory

Last Saturday, when I first sensed an opening in the brutal snow-ice-extreme cold combination that had gripped my area for the prior month, I drove my car to the supermarket. Approaching the crest of a hill a few blocks from my home, I gasped.

Ahead of me loomed a pothole with the joint circumference of a pair of garbage and recycling barrels in my driveway. What’s more, the crater looked large enough to swallow whole my car (not to mention its driver), like some bad 21^st-century horror movie about the terrors of suburban America.

Evidently, someone must have called the relevant authorities about the danger, because the next day traffic cones had been erected. When I walked by late this afternoon, the cones had been lifted. A stopgap measure had been adopted: the space around the railroad tracks, though not smooth, had been at least partly filled.

My guess is that some areas of major county roads will continue to pose dangers to the tires and shocks of unwary motorists. My street, meanwhile, will probably feature, for a while yet, this scene that I photographed several hours ago. It will stay this way while busier streets receive attention and dollars, until someone finally squawks about it enough to get it fixed.